Thursday 13 March 2014 19.09 EDT
First published on Thursday 13 March 2014 19.09 EDT

Followers of the Rebekah Brooks trial learned this week that the former prime minister Tony Blair wrote the following to Ms Brooks on the day she resigned as chief executive of News International: "I'm really sorry about it all. Call me if you need to. T x." Let us pass swiftly, if we may, over the fact of their friendship and alight instead on the positive, feminising vibes of that final "x". Email "x-ing", as it is not yet known, has taken such ferocious root in the culture that many of us now write it at the end of missives to the plumber, the boss and the tax accountant. The "x" has been synonymous with long-distance kissing since at least 1763, according to the OED, but where it was once the preserve of couples and would-be lovers, family members and close friends, it is now ubiquitous. Alongside the "O" hug, it has become our favourite way to inject warmth into the tonal desert of digital communications. And so write to it: "XOXOXOXOXOX".